One of the cool features of OneNote that a lot of users are unaware of is its ability to store files for you, just like keeping a file in a desktop folder or in a folder on a cloud service like DropBox, OneDrive or GoogleDrive. In OneNote, however, you get a little more "interaction" than when sticking a file anywhere else. Let me show you what I mean…
Students and professionals have gobs of benefits from using OneNote to keep track of all the things in their school/work world. Whether for a class assignment or a work project, it is often very handy to have a file right there with your notes/data. With OneNote, you can simply copy/past a file right onto a page. (I know--that hardly sounds exciting, but hang on. It gets cool…in a geeky way.)
I'm a visual person, so OneNote is perfect for me. It's all digital, obviously, but things have a visual "feel" to them because of the UI that is sort of a throwback to the old Trapper Keeper days. (If you are younger than 35, I may have lost you with that reference, but just keep rolling.) Here's an example.
Students and professionals have gobs of benefits from using OneNote to keep track of all the things in their school/work world. Whether for a class assignment or a work project, it is often very handy to have a file right there with your notes/data. With OneNote, you can simply copy/past a file right onto a page. (I know--that hardly sounds exciting, but hang on. It gets cool…in a geeky way.)
I'm a visual person, so OneNote is perfect for me. It's all digital, obviously, but things have a visual "feel" to them because of the UI that is sort of a throwback to the old Trapper Keeper days. (If you are younger than 35, I may have lost you with that reference, but just keep rolling.) Here's an example.
This summer I taught summer school. It was in a different building than where I normally work, and we were not using the grade book & attendance software used during the normal school year. In OneNote, I had one page where I could click a link to the web-based school attendance the principal had created, where I had to enter each day. I could also click the actual Excel files of my class roster/attendance for each period and of my class gradebook and open them.
This file was my personal attendance log for each of the class periods I taught. I like how in OneNote I can put files with other data/content and visually arrange them all however I want. This is not a shortcut to a location elsewhere--the Excel file is stored right here in OneNote. Simply double-click to open as you normally would.
(Word documents are what I typically stick in my notebooks, but right here it happens to be an Excel file.)
(Word documents are what I typically stick in my notebooks, but right here it happens to be an Excel file.)
Open the file, work on it as you normally would, and then the cool part. When you are finished, simply click on the Save button, and that's it. The file is saved back into OneNote, with the changes made. Thus, it is a working file and is not simply a static attachment. Okay, I probably need to get out more, but when I discovered this, I was pretty excited.
The process to place a file onto a OneNote page is quite simple. To my knowledge there is not a way to save a brand new file/document to OneNote. (Someone correct me if that is not the case.) So, with a document that's already somewhere else, simply copy and paste. OneNote will ask if you want to Attach File or Insert Printout. Select Attach File and--BAM--there it is on your page. Move it around and position wherever you want on the page.
And that's it! Like I said, after you open the file from OneNote, clicking on Save updates the newer version on your OneNote page, just like a regular file directory. To my knowledge, this is only possible with the desktop version of OneNote, however. As always, if you have a comment, suggestion, or if I made an error, please post a comment. Keep tuned for lots more OneNote tips coming in August!